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Without the right to communicate and democratisation of communication, the right to life, liberty, freedom of speech and expression is meaningless.It attempts to keep track of traditional media, offline media and digital media that faces the onslaught of monopolistic tendencies and is wary of localisation of media. It is part of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) For Details: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mediavigil/info

New Delhi, 28 Jan, 2013: Prime
Minister headed Cabinet Committee on UID related matters (CCUIDRM) which also
deal with National Population Register (NPR) has ensured that Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) continues to complete its four years
of existence without any legal basis and without disclosing that UID database
and NPR database is being merged with the electoral database. UIDAI was created
by a notification of Planning Commission dated January28, 2009.The notification is attached.

As of as on
January 2, 2013, Cabinet Committee on
Unique Identification Authority of India related issues includes Prime
Minister, Sharad Pawar, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Food Processing
Industries, P. Chidambaram, Minister of Finance, Sushilkumar Shinde, Minister
of Home Affairs, Mallikarjun Kharge, Minister of Labour and Employment, Kapil
Sibal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Kumari Selja,
Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Rural
Development, Ajay Maken, Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Ashwani
Kumar, Minister of Law and Justice with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy
Chairman, Planning Commission and Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI as Special
Invitees.

The notification refers to an 'approved strategy' which has not been disclosed to the Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Finance and the Parliament. It appears that the fake rift
that was created for media consumption, for citizens and dissenting States like
Gujarat remains a part of the strategy. The terms of
reference in the notification is revealing.

Documents of key industry bodies available in public domain
indicate that this strategy comprises of converging
National Intelligence Grid that has been set up as an attached office of the
Ministry of Home Affairs in April, 2010 to link databases for constructing
actionable intelligence accessing about two dozen categories of data sources
including UID, NPR, Census and electoral database besides property database.

If citizens, Parliament, Courts and State
legislatures scrutinize the 'Strategic Vision on the
UIDAI Project' that was prepared and submitted to the processes committee of
the Planning Commission (set up in July 2006) by Wipro Ltd (consultant for the
design phase and programme management phase of the pilot UIDAI project), they
may get sufficient reason to dismantle the project. This vision document is
missing. It was not shared with the Parliamentary Committee on Finance which
rejected the UID project and Bill. The last clause of the National
Identification Authority of India (NIDAI) Bill, 2010 for UID revealed how UID
related initiatives and plans are meant to make democratic institutions
redundant or rubber stamps.

As per the website of
Cabinet Secretariat, the function of CCUIDAI includes, “All issues relating to
the Unique Identification Authority of India including its organization, plans,
policies, programmes, schemes, funding and methodology to be adopted for
achieving the objectives of that Authority.” Source: http://cabsec.nic.in/showpdf.php?type=council_cabinet_committees

It appears that CCUIDRM member, P Chidamabaram
and his colleagues in this Committee have managed to outsmart all the political
parties including likes of Narendra Modi and Yashwant Sinha and left government
in Tripura both in his role as Home Minister and now in his role a Finance
Minister.

Another 15-page document of Wipro, titled 'Does
India need a Unique Identity Number?', cited the example of UK's Identity Cards
Act, 2006 on page no. 6 to advance the argument on UID number in India.
Now that UK's new government has abandoned its National Identity Cards Scheme
and has announced it in the British Parliament.

Is it the case that when UK implements national
identity cards scheme, it should be cited as an example, but when it abandons
the programme, it becomes irrelevant and illogical?

Why are Wipro, UIDAI, the Planning Commission and
the prime minister silent about their UK example?

Is it not conflict of interest that after
submitting the 'Strategic Vision on the UIDAI Project'
(which is missing), Wipro has been getting contracts from UIDAI for 'Deployment
of 7 project managers, supply, installation, commissioning for hardware -
software for data centre at Bengaluru & NCR, deployment of 32 resource
personnel and monitoring tools and hiring of data centre space (2,000 sq ft)
& facilities for UIDAI at Delhi/NCR.' From December 2010 till May 2011, it
has got four contracts amidst reports of irregularities.

It is noteworthy that besides Supreme Court, writ petitions
are pending in Mumbai, Chennai and an appeal is pending in Karnataka too
questioning the legality and constitutionality of UID related projects.

Some 38 contracts have been awarded to various companies
including US and French biometric technology companies but these contract
documents are not in public domain. There is documented circumstantial evidence
that appears to show contracts succeed or precede UIDAI officials being awarded
in places like Milan, Italy in the way Pakistan's concerned officials have been
awarded by World Identification Summit/Congress sponsored by US entities like
AB Notes Corporations, the agency that prints currency and French entities like
Safran Group housed in Hindustan Times Building, New Delhi. The latter has got
several contracts from UIDAI. Interestingly, publications from this building
have openly declared themselves to be supporters of UID-Aadhhar.

In a related development, in a letter
to the President of India Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere (Retd) expressed grave
objections against mandatory UID Aadhaar scheme which is extra-legal, unethical
and coercive.

Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere has raised
questions about biometrics, data security and privacy saying, “It remains
unclear, even doubtful, whether biometry-information technology – the
technological cornerstone of the project – is capable of the gigantic task of
de-duplication in a billion-plus population. This is true in view of UIDAI's
Biometrics Standards Committee itself having noted that retaining biometric efficiency
for a database of more than one billion persons “has not been adequately
analysed” and the problem of fingerprint quality in India “has not been studied
in depth”. Further, it is well established that fingerprints of people who do
manual work are often worn out or even missing, as with rural agricultural workers
or urban domestic workers. These people, who are in enormous numbers and
declared beneficiaries of the UID Aadhaar scheme, will not be able to receive
social and other benefits even if they succeed in enrolling into the UID
Aadhaar scheme.”

In his letter, he observes, “The
security of biometric data and other information acquired by UIDAI is in
question for the following reasons: 2.2.3.1 The UID Aadhaar system can provide
the link between various data bases and it will inevitably be at the core of a
system which will enable profiling and tracking any citizen, to serve the
clandestine purposes of India's security or intelligence agencies, or to
corporate business interests.”

He says, “If biometric data and
other information of people falls into the hands of unauthorized agencies, personal
privacy is unequivocally compromised. The fact that UIDAI has no answer to the
security hazards pointed out to it, and is silent or evasive on the subject,
does not inspire confidence in the capability of UIDAI or the UID Aadhaar
system to maintain personal privacy rights. This is quite apart from the
plethora of scientific data available that shows how fingerprints are not
reliable indicators of unique identity. In view of all the foregoing, I fear
for violation of my personal right to privacy by enrolling into the UID Aadhaar
scheme.”

He has urged the President of
India saying, “I urgently and earnestly request you to 3.3.1 Issue immediate,
unambiguous orders to the concerned union ministries and state

governments, that making UID
Aadhaar enrolment necessary for receiving rightful entitlements like pension and salary, and
food-and-water, health, education, civil supplies and other welfare benefits, be stopped with
immediate effect.” The UID project or Aadhaar was supposed to be a scheme to
eliminate corruption in welfare schemes and provide an identity to the poor. It
is now intruding into citizens lives and rights. Several demonstrations have
shown that there are intrinsic and extrinsic flaws inherent in biometrics.

Citizens Forum for Civil
Liberties (CFCL) has been campaigning against unregulated biometric,
surveillance and identification technology companies since 2010 and had
appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee, Finance in this regard.
CFCL has consistently underlined that the silence of the States which are quite
vocal about threats to federal structure from Union Home Ministry‘s National
Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) that
integrates 21 sets of databases in the matter of the creation of UID’s
Centralized Identities Data Register (CIDR) disregarding the fact that Planning
Commission’s CIDR and Home Ministry’s National Population Register (NPR) is
inexplicable.

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